Miracles

Nine

"JULIANNA?" Her mother's normal speaking voice sounded like a screech. Julianna's head hurt so terribly that even her teeth seemed to ache in their sockets. In all the world, the only thing that wasn't awful this morning was her mother. Her mother, who should have been livid, who Julianna had thought would disown her for less than what she'd done last night, was the soul of gentle understanding.

No questions, no recriminations.

Curled up in a tight ball of misery against the door of the coach, Julianna watched the house where it had all happened sway and pitch and lunge from view. "I'm going to be sick," she whispered.

"No dear, that wouldn't be at all pleasant."

Julianna swallowed and swallowed again. "Are we almost home?"

"We aren't going home."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going right… here," her mother said, leaning to the side and searching for something with narrowed eyes that widened suddenly with delight.

Julianna made an effort to see where "here" was and saw only a pleasant little cottage with her papa's carriage in front of it, and another carriage with a crest painted on its side. And then she saw the chapel. And in the yard of that chapel, ignoring her father and watching their coach draw up, was Nicholas DuVille.

And the expression on his dark, saturnine face was a thousand times more glacial, more contemptuous, than any she had seen in the park.

"Why are we here?" Julianna cried, feeling faint from shock and nausea and headache.

"To attend your wedding to Nicholas DuVille."

"My what?! But why?"

"Why is he marrying you?" her mama said dryly as she opened the door. "Because he has no choice. He is a gentleman, after all. He knew the rules, and he broke them. Our hostess and two servants saw you running out of his bedchamber. He ruined the reputation of an innocent, well-bred young lady. If he didn't marry you now, you would be ruined, but he could never again call himself a gentleman. He would lose face among his peers. His own code of honor requires this."

"I don't want this!" Julianna cried. "I'll make him understand!"

"I didn't want this!" Julianna was babbling a quarter of an hour later as she was shoved roughly into her new husband's coach. He had not spoken a word except in answer to his vows. He spoke now: "Shut up and get in!"

"Where are we going?" she cried.

"To your new home," he said with scathing sarcasm. "Your new home," he clarified.